3D Printing using Matlab-Libraries (Matlab-CAD)
Since 1992, MIMED, the Institute of Micro Technology and Medical Device Technology, is working in the field of design, programming, and application of 3D printing technology. In research, different technologies such as STL, fuse deposition modeling (FDM), 3D printing, selective laser sintering (SLS), selective laser melting (SLM), and drop injection printing (DIP) are used or improved. The Augsburg company voxeljet is a spin-off of the institute. Companies such as Arburg in Lossburg use our hardware and software technology. Since 1997, stereolithography printouts were also used for surgical planning. Because MIMED designs printing technology and print heads also materials such as Hydroxylapatite were printed for scaffolds in tissue engineering. Since 2001, the rapid prototyping was used for manufacturing of mechanical and kinematic models of surgical instruments and the construction of robot components. Since 2005, components were produced at MIMED used for robotic surgical systems. Since 2009 there is the concept of the robot kit, which consists of standard modules (swivel, sliding joint) is easily replaceable drive modules and a CPU.
Following the concept of modular printed robot systems, a CAD System for computer aided design of mechatronic robot systems is under development since 2010. It is based on Matlab and offers fully automatic constructions procedures for the design of robot systems. The final results are STL-Files that can be uploaded to a 3D printer.
FTobject
% FTobject(VL,FL) - generates an surface object from a vertex list and
% facet list
% (by Tim Lueth, VLFL-Lib, 2012-OKT-22 as class: ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY)
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% FTO.VL=VL
% FTO.FL=FL
%
% FTO=FTobject(VL,FL)
% === INPUT PARAMETERS ===
% VL: Vertex list
% FL: Facet list
% === OUTPUT RESULTS ======
% FTO: Object type (FTO.VL=VL, FTO.FL=FL)
%